Grace

by T. Greenwood

  “A proper darkroom,” he said, showing Trevor everything he had done, offering it to him like a gift.

  They managed to save the enlarger and some other equipment from the river’s edge, and what they couldn’t save his father had somehow replaced. His dad had even gotten the shed wired with electricity, plumbed so that he’d have running water. His father called Mrs. D., and she promised she’d come to the house that summer, to show him how to develop the film, how to enlarge the pictures and make prints.

  His mother gave him the hundreds and hundreds of photos she’d had developed for him, and he felt terrible for thinking she’d stolen them from him.

  “You’re a really good photographer,” she’d said, looking through each of the photos with him at the kitchen table. “You know that, right?”

  He’d nodded then, embarrassed but proud.

  “Can I keep this one?” she’d asked, holding up the one of Gracy standing in the river.

  She took the negative to Walgreens and had it enlarged, then she framed it and hung it in the living room, right where everybody could see it.

  Now he lies down in the back of the truck and peers through the viewfinder of his camera up at the sky. He can feel the road under his back. It makes his heart and lungs feel like they are being pummeled. It hurts, but the view is worth the pain. Storm clouds crowd out the sun, stealing the little bit of warmth remaining. It is still spring, still cold, but summer will be here soon. Every single thing tells him this is true: the tops of the trees turning green. The crisp chill to the air, the smell of fertilizer and sunshine. Even the breeze tastes different, sweet.

  The school is shut down for the rest of the year. He won’t ever have to go back there. As long as he passes the tests they send in the mail, he’ll be able to go to the high school in the fall. Start over.

  Ethan was hurt in the explosion. Badly. Trevor heard that both of his hands were burned when he was trying to get out of the cafeteria. He heard that they were worried for a while that they might not be able to save them. He thought about Ethan without hands, how powerless he was now. How impotent. Mike wasn’t hurt. He’d been at a doctor’s appointment or something that morning. But after the explosion his parents decided to move away; Angie told him that her parents were selling their house.

  He visits Angie sometimes. He takes her art supplies. Her sister, who stays home to take care of her, always leaves them alone, brings them snacks and stuff to drink.

  He asked Angie the last time he was there if he could take a photo of her.

  There is something amazing about a body that’s been harmed the way hers has, something incredible about its stubborn insistence upon healing itself: all that damaged skin sloughing off, replaced by the new, fresh pink flesh. The hopefulness of it is what gets to him.

  “It’s beautiful,” he said as he peered through his viewfinder at her. At all that shiny hope emerging.

  “Shut up,” she said, but she smiled too. As he clicked and clicked and clicked.

  Next week they’re going to Florida. He’s excited to fly, both afraid and thrilled. He thinks about looking at the clouds from the inside. In the back of his dad’s truck, he tries to concentrate on the clouds, to think only of flying. For now, he has nothing to worry about except sunshine. Nothing to worry about except how he might capture the light.

  Acknowledgments

  This book was, in many ways, a collaborative project. It was not written alone, and it is with humility and gratitude that I offer my thanks to everyone who contributed and conspired:

  To my family, whose support sustains me always. To Patrick and the girls, who give purpose to my work (and all the necessary diversions from it as well). Thanks especially to Kicky for Dizzy and Squirrel; I promise the rest of their story will come soon.

  To Jim Ruland and Rich Farrell, the other two-thirds of the Dub Club triumvirate, who stood by as this little bird incubated, giving me both nest to keep it safe and, later, the worms to feed it. And who watched as the ugly little thing finally grew into something worthy of both flight and song. (A special thanks to Jim for your eleventh-hour suggestions. Phew.)

  To Mireya Schmidt, Tim Hussion, and Angie Vorhies for your generosity and to Georgia Bilski for the swirliest hair.

  To Peter Senftleben for always seeing what I cannot. To everyone at Kensington for helping make beautiful books and finding people to read them. To Henry Dunow for looking after me, and to all my best teachers: the ones who taught me the importance of perspective, and the power of light.

  Discussion Questions

  1. When Crystal first goes to the Kennedys’ house, she observes: “What you see on the outside rarely reflects what’s really on the inside. She, of all people, understood that appearances can be deceiving.” Discuss the idea of perception in this novel. Compare Crystal’s assumptions of the Kennedy family through the photos and her interactions with Elsbeth and Gracy with each of the characters’ own narratives. Do you think her view of them is accurate at all? Talk about Elsbeth’s and Kurt’s opposite reactions to Trevor’s pictures of Gracy. Further, consider how your life might look to an outsider and how accurate that perception is or how it differs from the truth.

  2. Discuss the various father-son relationships: Kurt and Trevor, Jude and Kurt, Jude and Billy. Are there patterns to be found? Any broken? How is Kurt like his father? How is he different? What parallels are there between the opening scene and the one in which Jude catches Billy with a man in the junkyard?

  3. Trevor is a victim of Ethan and Mike’s bullying, but is he also victimized by those people who fail to protect him? Who do you believe is at fault for the way he is treated? How do you think he handled the bullying? Should he have fought more, reported it, ignored it? What could have been done to protect him and other students?

  4. What purpose does Elsbeth’s shoplifting serve for her? What is missing in her life? Do you think she will stop now? Discuss her need for things and Jude’s hoarding. Are the two more similar than different?

  5. Talk about the theme of stealing in Grace. Elsbeth shoplifts, Trevor steals equipment and chemicals from school, and Crystal steals Gracy. What else is stolen, figuratively and literally, over the course of the novel?

  6. Photography allows Trevor to see the world as an artist. Does this make his world more endurable to him? What impact does art—in the form of photography, drawing, tattoos, etc.—have on each of the characters in Grace?

  7. Put yourself in Kurt’s position as a son or daughter to an aging father with an obvious illness. How would you have handled the situation? Do you think Kurt did the right thing by setting him up in the trailer in the backyard, or should he have left Jude in his own home like he wanted? Do you think it was abuse like Maury suggested?

  8. Why is Crystal so consumed by Elsbeth and Grace? How does her relationship with the Kennedys change her? Did this event actually, in the end, help her get over the loss of her own Grace or make her more regretful?

  9. Do you think that Kurt and Trevor will ever be able to get past that awful night in the pasture? Is there any amount of healing or love that can mend such a rift?

  10. Discuss Elsbeth’s feelings regarding Trevor and Gracy. Do you believe it’s possible for a mother to love one child more than another for no reason? Are she and Kurt bad parents? Why or why not?

  11. Discuss the concept of grace in this novel. Think about all of the definitions and uses of the word.

  Have you read all of T. Greenwood’s

  critically acclaimed novels?

  Available in trade paperback and as e-books.

  NEARER THAN THE SKY

  In this mesmerizing novel, T. Greenwood draws readers into the

  fascinating and frightening world of Munchausen syndrome

  by proxy—and into one woman’s search for healing.

  When Indie Brown was four years old, she was struck by lightning. In the oft-told version of the story, Indie’s life was heroically saved by her mother. But Indie’s own recoll
ection of the event, while hazy, is very different.

  Most of Indie’s childhood memories are like this—tinged with vague, unsettling images and suspicions. Her mother, Judy, fussed over her pretty youngest daughter, Lily, as much as she ignored Indie. That neglect, coupled with the death of her beloved older brother, is the reason Indie now lives far away in rural Maine. It’s why her relationship with Lily is filled with tension, and why she dreads the thought of flying back to Arizona. But she has no choice. Judy is gravely ill, and Lily, struggling with a challenge of her own, needs her help.

  In Arizona, faced with Lily’s hysteria and their mother’s instability, Indie slowly begins to confront the truth about her half-remembered past and the legacy that still haunts her family. And as she revisits her childhood, with its nightmares and lost innocence, she finds she must reevaluate the choices of her adulthood—including her most precious relationships.

  THIS GLITTERING WORLD

  Acclaimed author T. Greenwood crafts a moving, lyrical

  story of loss, atonement, and promises kept.

  One November morning, Ben Bailey walks out of his Flagstaff, Arizona, home to retrieve the paper. Instead, he finds Ricky Begay, a young Navajo man, beaten and dying in the newly fallen snow.

  Unable to forget the incident, especially once he meets Ricky’s sister, Shadi, Ben begins to question everything, from his job as a part-time history professor to his fiancée, Sara. When Ben first met Sara, he was mesmerized by her optimism and easy confidence. These days, their relationship only reinforces a loneliness that stretches back to his fractured childhood.

  Ben decides to discover the truth about Ricky’s death, both for Shadi’s sake and in hopes of filling in the cracks in his own life. Yet the answers leave him torn—between responsibility and happiness, between his once-certain future and the choices that could liberate him from a delicate web of lies he has spun.

  UNDRESSING THE MOON

  Dark and compassionate, graceful yet raw, Undressing

  the Moon explores the seams between childhood and

  adulthood, between love and loss....

  At thirty, Piper Kincaid feels too young to be dying. Cancer has eaten away her strength; she’d be alone but for a childhood friend who’s come home by chance. Yet with all the questions of her future before her, she’s adrift in the past, remembering the fateful summer she turned fourteen and her life changed forever.

  Her nervous father’s job search seemed stalled for good as he hung around the house watching her mother’s every move. What he and Piper had both dreaded at last came to pass: Her restless, artistic mother, who smelled of lilacs and showed Piper beauty, finally left.

  With no one to rely on, Piper struggled to hold on to what was important. She had a brother who loved her and a teacher enthralled with her potential. But her mother’s absence, her father’s distance, and a volatile secret threatened her delicate balance.

  Now Piper is once again left with the jagged pieces of a shattered life. If she is ever going to put herself back together, she’ll have to begin with the summer that broke them all....

  THE HUNGRY SEASON

  It’s been five years since the Mason family vacationed at the lakeside cottage in northeastern Vermont, close to where prizewinning novelist Samuel Mason grew up. The summers that Sam, his wife, Mena, and their twins, Franny and Finn, spent at Lake Gormlaith were noisy, chaotic, and nearly perfect. But since Franny’s death, the Masons have been flailing, one step away from falling apart. Lake Gormlaith is Sam’s last, best hope of rescuing his son from a destructive path and salvaging what’s left of his family.

  As Sam struggles with grief, writer’s block, and a looming deadline, Mena tries to repair the marital bond she once thought was unbreakable. But even in this secluded place, the unexpected—in the form of an overzealous fan, a surprising friendship, and a second chance—can change everything.

  From the acclaimed author of Two Rivers comes a compelling and beautifully told story of hope, family and, above all, hunger—for food, sex, love, and success—and for a way back to wholeness when a part of oneself has been lost forever.

  TWO RIVERS

  Two Rivers is a powerful, haunting tale of enduring love,

  destructive secrets, and opportunities that arrive in disguise....

  In Two Rivers, Vermont, Harper Montgomery is living a life overshadowed by grief and guilt. Since the death of his wife, Betsy, twelve years earlier, Harper has narrowed his world to working at the local railroad and raising his daughter, Shelly, the best way he knows how. Still racked with sorrow over the loss of his life-long love and plagued by his role in a brutal, long-ago crime, he wants only to make amends for his past mistakes.

  Then one fall day, a train derails in Two Rivers, and amid the wreckage Harper finds an unexpected chance at atonement. One of the survivors, a pregnant fifteen-year-old girl with mismatched eyes and skin the color of blackberries, needs a place to stay. Though filled with misgivings, Harper offers to take Maggie in. But it isn’t long before he begins to suspect that Maggie’s appearance in Two Rivers is not the simple case of happenstance it first appeared to be.

  Be sure to look for Breathing Water,

  available again in October 2012!

  All names, characters, events, and places in this novel are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, incidents, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2012 by T. Greenwood

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

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  ISBN: 978-0-7582-7815-9